


Heretic's Daughter

by Mysterious_Prophetess



Series: Heretic Legacy [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 02:19:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11980014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysterious_Prophetess/pseuds/Mysterious_Prophetess
Summary: Aulea Lucis Caelum: new mother, Queen of Lucis, and....Lucii?





	Heretic's Daughter

Aulea Lucis Caelum was not surprised by her mother’s death. She had been taught by her mother, from a young age, how to read the cards and divine the future. Plus, there was the fact she had been coughing up blood since before Noctis had been born. However, her mother’s crazy charm had been the mental reassurance Aulea needed to not stress and now she had the small child sleeping against her breast as she looked at the cards she’d just laid out. She frowned.

“What is it? Oh, you’re telling the future again?” Regis thought it was just a game. Well, it was mostly but sometimes, whenever she was really in the zone, like she had been, it was eeriely accurate. She had the spread, Etro’s Cross, before her. This was an in depth reading.

“I think I might have foretold yours,” she said.

“Read it to me then,” Regis gently took Noctis from her arms and held him as if he were the most precious person ever. To them, he was.

“According to this card, the Tower, you find yourself in a perilous environment.The King of Cups, inverted. Your challenge has to deal with someone’s double dealing, which is the cause of your peril. The past, the Ace of Swords, inverted. Hatred and misery on the part of the man who is duplicitous has motivated his actions. The future, the Infernian, all that shall happen is because of for-ordinance. Above is the Queen of Stars. Your goal is Security. Below, the World. Your driving desire is to succeed and to change the world for the better. Advice, the Three of Swords. It calls for the removal of the duplicitous man. The external influence is the Magician. I’m…not entirely sure what this means, but I think it has to do with illness and a trap, the trap of an enemy who is associated with illness? Hopes and Fears, the Inverted Ace of Wands. A fear of fall and ruin?” Aulea drew a second card.

“Inverted Six of Wands. Fears of dispute from within. The outcome of all of this….Inverted Death. Hope destroyed,” Aulea let out a nervous chuckle, “Well it’s not accurate probably.” Regis was staring at her with unabashed shock.

“Regis?”

“Nothing, it just sounded so…dire,” Regis said.

“I can’t always predict pleasant things such as Clarus Amicitia is going to be in the doghouse for taking his three-year-old son to the river without telling his wife Alyssum where they were going,” Aulea said.

“That’s not fortune telling, that’s just predictability,” Regis said.

“Fair enough,” Aulea said gathering the cards back up. She tucked them into a box which lit up with a magenta flash before vanishing. Both royals gaped at the display. Aulea shakily held a hand out and the cards reappeared. She dropped them in shock as they returned whence they came with another magenta flash.

“Regis?”

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Aulea held Noctis in her arms as Regis paced his study. There was a lab report on the desk.

“I know what people said about my mother behind her back: The Mad Heretic Woman. The crazy woman messing with magic beyond her control. The Heretic who hates the Astrals. I heard it all, but do you think maybe this is because of her spells going too far?” Aulea said.

“A spell couldn’t make it look like you were a member of an unknown cadet branch of the Lucis Caelum line. Only DNA can do that,” Regis said.

“Then whoever my father was— _is_ —, he is a Lucis Caelum?” Aulea asked.

“It looks that way. It would make Noctis more royal than me,” Regis said with a laugh.

“A true king through and through,” Aulea said.

———————————————————————————————————————————————

**March 15, ME 737, Old Lestallum, Cleign**

Aulea’s mother’s funeral was a subdued, small affair. After all, when one earns the title “Heretic” it is pretty much assumed they’d not have much in the way of friends or acquaintances. Though her former “clients” showed up en masse. She’d left Noctis back at the palace with Regis. A six-month-old would never have been able to handle a funeral. It was also less security needed for only the Queen to travel beyond the Wall. From the gossip mongers, Aulea almost regretted holding it in her mother’s home town, but it had been her mother’s wish to be buried in the town she’d been born in.

_“Think the daemons she made deals with to get such a pretty daughter finally called in their debts?”_

_“Nah, probably dabbled a bit too far into her “arts” and ended up killing herself. At least that lunatic is no long able to potentially influence the Prince.”_

_“What about the Queen? Have you seen that unnatural color she dyes her hair?”_

_“You’d think after she got the attention of the King, she’d stop, but she must like the color.”_

Aulea bristled. She _never_ dyed her hair.

“Such a somber affair.” Aulea looked right into amber eyes framed by slightly curly magenta hair. She took a step back not only from this stranger’s proximity, but from the fact his hair was an identical shade to hers.

“I should hope so; it is a funeral,” Aulea said, “Who are you?”

“Just a man of no consequence, Your Majesty. Though, I must admit it’s a pleasant surprise to see the Queen of Lucis outside that barrier around the Crown City,” he said.

“I do not fear the Empire. These are Lucian lands.” Aulea gestured around her. _Besides, I happen to have my own arsenal of weapons_.

“I’m sure that is true, for now,” he said. The sun set, making it too dangerous for them to depart for Insomnia forcing Aulea and her guards to stay the night.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Aulea’s caravan was attacked the next morning. It had been an exceptionally cloudy day, and they’d set out very early. Aulea was flung from the vehicle. Her hazy vision showed the man from before leaning over her, lips moving but she didn’t comprehend what they said.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Ardyn looked down at the ruined body of the daughter he’d barely met. A slight tug of sentimentality over came him.

“Get her aboard the ship and treat her wounds,” he ordered. As troopers picked her up, a rather cruel idea came to mind. Finders keepers, losers _weepers_.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

To Insomnia, the accident was horrific and not a trace of the Queen or her guards was found beyond bloody smears on the Cleign roads.

 

In a stasis tank in Niflheim, Aulea slept, not knowing she had just been declared dead to the world and to her family.

“Who is this that you’d turn to me to keep her alive?” Verstael asked gesturing at the tank.

“A relative of mine. A dear one, who I should like to see kept as human as possible. She’s not yours to play with, but you can study her blood if it pleases you,” Ardyn said.

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel no one asked for to the work that I wrote on a whim. The Heretic Universe has several avenues it can take and the current path leads to a concept I've been playing with (unsuccessfully I might add) in other failed FF XV fics.  
> Ardyn has no _familial_ attachment to Aulea, but it's a matter of hurting and shaping Lucis for his own vision of the future.
> 
>  **Fun fact** : The spread is the Celtic Cross and the meanings I used for the Tarrot cards are some of the interpretations you can use for those cards.


End file.
